AHRQ's 2016 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report shows that the quality of health care continues to improve gradually each year but gains remain uneven among minorities. Some of the biggest improvements are in measures of "person-centered care," such as communication between doctors and their patients, and the safety of medical care, such as fewer complications among hospital patients who were taking anticoagulants other than warfarin.The report also indicates that fewer people were uninsured, as 11 percent of people under age 65 were uninsured in 2016 compared with 18 percent in 2010. However, most disparities in health care quality continued to persist, with no significant improvements for any racial or ethnic groups, especially people in poor, low-income and uninsured households as well as blacks and Hispanics. As a companion to the report, AHRQ's Chartbook on Patient Safety provides new data on dozens of safety measures, such the rate of central line-associated bloodstream infections decreasing by more than 40 percent between 2009 and 2014. Access an AHRQ Views blog on AHRQ's new report and chartbook.

Patient Mortality Declines Shown at Hospitals Using Surgical Checklist Program

Patient deaths following surgery declined significantly from 2011 to 2013 at South Carolina hospitals where staff completed a voluntary checklist of patient safety safeguards, according to an AHRQ-funded study. The mortality rate following inpatient surgery declined 22 percent among patients at 14 hospitals that completed the checklist-based safety program. The checklist included safeguards such as identifying patients by name and date of birth before administering anesthesia, confirming surgical procedures to be performed and having an advance team briefing about the operative plan and potential difficulties. As a team-based tool, the checklist was designed to promote stronger communication among surgical staff to increase patient safety. The study's authors concluded that broad, ongoing participation of both frontline clinicians and hospital leadership is necessary to produce behavioral change among surgical teams. The study found no change in mortality rates among 44 other hospitals statewide that did not complete the program. Access the abstract of the study, which was published in the Annals of Surgery.

AHRQ Seeks Nominations to Its National Advisory Council

Nominations are being accepted to AHRQ's National Advisory Council, a 21-member volunteer panel that meets three times a year to advise the agency's director and the HHS secretary on matters related to AHRQ's mission. Nominees may nclude experts in health care quality and improvement, clinical practice, health insurance, health care administration, economics, informatics, health care law, public policy or the private sector. The agency also welcomes nominees from small health care systems as well as state and local human services organizations. The nomination deadline is Aug. 27.

Community Health Center Patients More Likely To Have Insurance After Medicaid Expansion and Subsidies

In states that expanded Medicaid under provisions of the Affordable Care Act, primary care visits to community health centers where a patient had no insurance dropped by 57 percent between 2012 and 2015, a new AHRQ study showed. That compares to a 20 percent decline in the uninsured rate in states that did not expand Medicaid. In addition, the rate of visits paid for by private insurance were 2.7 times higher in non-expansion states, but did not increase in states that expanded Medicaid. Researchers examined electronic health record data in 13 states from more than 875,000 patients between the ages of 19 and 64 who had more than one ambulatory visit to a community health center between 2012 and 2015. Access the abstract of the article, which was published in the Journal of Primary Care & Community Health.

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

A new era in quality measurement: the development and application of quality measures. Adirim T, Meade K, Mistry K, et al. Pediatrics 2017 Jan;139(1). Access the abstract on PubMed®.